Loki sighed, undressing in the locker room and folding his suit as he was taking it off; it was poorly fitting and cheap, but he knew that it would do; he really didn't want to go back to his brother and his girlfriend, but knew that he probably had to. Still, he moved a little more slowly than he could have been moving, hoping for an excuse not to go back just yet.

No such luck, so once he was redressed in his street clothes he left the restaurant, turned into the alley, and stepped into a shadow. He arrived in the living room silently, starting to his room. "How was the job brother?" Thor asked, but Loki ignored him; it bothered him that he was no longer truly free, that he had to be supervised by Thor. He knew that he deserved it, but that didn't mean that he liked it.

Once in the small room Jane was allowing him to use, he settled himself down onto the air mattress and tried turning his thoughts to the girl, Sage; she was having some sort of fun at least. Thinking about her unsettled him slightly, arousing a feeling he couldn't quite put a finger on; he didn't like it. It was unnatural, how he felt, how confusing the feeling was.

Worse, was he knew that she was aware that he was feeling these emotions, and could probably name them in a heartbeat if he asked; she was smart like that. Sighing deeply, Loki tried to get comfortable on the makeshift bed, staring up at the ceiling and contemplating his voluntary confinement and the confusion he felt towards the Migardian girl.

----

Sage, who had previously been in the middle of conversation with Viktor, Clint, and Natasha, became slightly distracted when Loki's thoughts moved to her; he was a constant presence in her head, and even though she'd grown used to drowning out the emotional noise he created within her mind, her inner senses immediately picked up when his attention became relevant to her person.

There was a confusing swirl of emotion behind the initial item that had grabbed her consideration, but they were as abstract to her as they were to him, and she couldn't manage to put a name to any of them. "Sage," Viktor snapped in front of her face, bringing her back to awareness.

"What? Sorry; I thought of something and got distracted," she muttered, shaking her head and pushing Loki's emotions to the back of her mind for the moment.

"Care to tell?"

"I don't know; something about Russia, I lost my train of thought when you interrupted me," she lied, taking a bite of the waning portion of food on her plate and acting nonchalant; but she still felt Loki in the back of her head, and knew that he was aware of her thoughts on him as she was aware of his thoughts on her.

"Weirdo," Viktor jested, messing up her hair and laughing. "Well, if you remember then tell me."

"I will."

----

An ice cold shiver ran down the God of Mischief's spine when he felt the girl's attention turned to him, albeit it was only a brief attention, but it made him shiver nonetheless. Loki wasn't sure if he wanted her attention or not. "You're turning out to be much more distracting than I thought you would be," he jumped at the sound of her voice, sitting up straight as the lean girl, smirking at him, sat at his feet gracefully.

"How did you-?" he stuttered before realizing that he had already knew the answer; she shadow walked. "You're getting good at that."

"I don't even need to know where I'm going, so long as I'm going to you," she pointed out, sighing. "I don't have a lot of time, my friends think that I'm going to the restroom, so I'll cut to the chase; why were you thinking of me?"

"I just, I just was,"

"You just were?"

"I just was,"

"That's not what it felt like."

"That's what it was,"

"Warn me next time then; I nearly was pulled into a tricky situation because I felt you thinking about me, you're a real touchy subject still and I don't want to have to keep dancing around you because you can't keep your mind off of me." Sage stated as the god sorted himself out on the mattress.

"And how do you suppose that I do that?" he retorted, a bit sharply; he didn't want her to be showing up and telling him what to do out of the blue like this.

"Don't get defensive; just do it. It'll make things easier for the both of us." Sage stood, took a step forwards and disappeared, to which action the god sighed; the girl was quick and businesslike, straight to the point and clear in her delivery. Too quick, too businesslike, too straight to the point, too clear in delivery; he recognized an act when he saw one, he recognized a lie, he should, after all, he was the God of Counterfeit.

Whether the lie had been intentional or not, he wasn't sure which, but he wasn't going to let it go, let her get away with it; he had every intention of getting to the bottom of it. And he knew that she knew that.

----

Sighing, the brunette girl exited the bathroom stall and went to wash her hands in the sink, having flushed to make her cover all the more real. The last thing she wanted was to be found out she had visited Loki; that would be an argument waiting to happen, if she was caught. In the back of her head she could feel the god practically accusing her of the same sort of deviousness he was infamous for, and sent a mental declaration of her outrage right back to him.

----

Loki was caught off guard by the form of reply, the pure, fiery jolt of anger he knew was intentionally sent towards him after the previous thoughts he'd had about her lying; the communication made him grin and chuckle. It was amusing, the silent 'conversation' they were indulging in at the moment.

----

The feeling of amusement coming from Loki made Sage feel slightly indignant, and the girl frowned while drying up her hands, sending another emotional punch in the side for his behavior and thoughts. She didn't need him to be laughing at her, distracting her when she needed to be getting back to the others.

"So Clint and I will split the bill," she heard Natasha say as she walked back into the room.

"You know; when I said 'my treat', I meant 'my treat', not 'Natasha and Clint will split the bill'," Sage commented, slipping the piece of paper out of Clint's hand and glancing over it before pulling out her wallet; fifty three dollars was no skin off of her bones, and she easily pulled that and a generous tip from her wallet.

"I tried telling them that," Viktor grinned, knowing the girl had a penchant for paying.

"Do you always carry around that much money?" Natasha looked blasphemous at the amount Sage had so willingly and easily dropped onto the table, seventy dollars.

"Often times; I'm not always such a big spender, but I enjoy keeping it around in the case that I stumble across something that I like," the girl shrugged, grinning as wide as a Cheshire and obviously amused.

"And where do you get that sort of money?" Clint asked, having spotted at least another few bills left in her wallet before she had put it away.

"I'm almost filthy stinking rich," she laughed; confident that since the conversation was in Russian that the information was private enough.

"Almost?" Viktor prodded; he had already known about her money situation, of course, it was pretty apparent even before she paid his round trip plane ticket to come to America.

"I'm not eighteen yet," she chuckled, punching him in the side for asking the leading question.

----

The bolt of anger jolted Loki again, but he couldn't help a smile at it; making a half attempt to 'listen' in on her conversation with whomever she was with. She was quickly put into a good mood, which had put him in a good mood; he almost felt like trying to communicate with her again, now that she wasn't angry.

But he didn't want to ruin her mood, as much as he was craving interaction; and he had to admit, he did enjoy interacting with her. She was straightforward and intriguing; and she was one of the only people willing and capable of interacting with him.

He waited an hour, until she felt that she was alone, or relatively alone, before trying to implore a conversation. It wasn't too late where he was, but knew that it must be late in New York, where she was. The responding emotion he felt from her was fleeting, inviting; and he smiled genuinely.

----

Sage was lying in bed when she felt the presence of Loki in her head implore her for conversation, for interaction, which she was happy to supply, having been feeling how lonely he felt for the last hour in the back of her mind while she was awake with the other. Viktor was on a blow up mattress on the floor of her room, snoring lightly; she would have never guessed him one to snore.

Instantly, she felt his happiness at her reply, her willingness to provide him with some form of entertainment and human interaction, and sniggered slightly.

----

It was almost an hour before the silent, strained communication between the two died away; Loki had felt that the girl was tired and wanted to let her sleep. He had to laugh at the way they 'talked'; none of their ideas were descriptive, all of the conversation had to be abstract. It was captivating the way the most complex emotions could be passed from one to the other, because, he felt, they had gone pretty in depth with one another in that way; but they couldn't manage to pass words and only the basis of ideas managed to get through the divide. He couldn't be entirely sure that they had been having the same conversation; and that was funny to him. Maybe, if he had a chance to see her face to face, he would be able to ask.